The Grant 613 wheel came in and I wasn't very impressed with the build quality.
Attachment:
Grant 613 wheel close up. QC check..jpg
Obviously this will not be a show car, however the construction looks very bad, and most of all it VERY flexible in my hands. I can bend it ~1/2" out of plane by hand. Not very confidence inspiring. It would be rather disappointing if a spoke broke off in my hand while driving. I think I will just bite the bullet for a Momo Mod 27. Momo has some experience making steering wheels, and is essentially standard equipment on BTCC cars, WRC cars, and 90's LMP Le Mans prototypes. I believe the Momo Mod 26 is standard on several Caterhams models. I've contacted Summit Racing to see what their policy is on returning steering wheels.
The Sweet Mfg quick release hub came in today, and there was a VERY little bit of axial play, however "adjusting" the aluminum washer behind the snap ring removed essentially ALL axial play. There is also ZERO rotational play between the male and female splines. Made in Kalamazoo Michigan.
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Sweet Mfg QD splined hub.jpg
My only complaint with the hub is that it arrived with a good number of scratches and rather prominent gash on the red anodized finish--but nothing structural. Also would it kill Sweet Mfg. to coat the splines in a little oil before packaging them up for storage and sales, as there are a few rust spots already.
In other news, in the last couple of months I've been playing with the idea of force feeding the engine. I figured if I'm spending all of this time and effort building a performance car, might as well build it to scare the $hit out of me:
May I present Mr. Eaton:
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Eaton M90 Supercharger.jpg
The venerable M90 positive displacement Roots type blower. Granted peak power will be lower compared to a turbocharger, but the area under the power curve will obviously be greater than my current NA application. Due to the counter clockwise rotation of the B-series, and the clockwise rotation of the blower, my thoughts were to cut the current manifold plenum off, add a box in place of the plenum in which the SC would bolt to, and run a counter shaft through the plenum box with mounted bearings on both sides. Clearing the blower within the rear triangulation stays may be tricky.
The price I paid for the blower as insanely low, but I'll need to buy an M90 rebuild kit with new bearings, seals, and gear oil. From what I recall in autocross, 2nd gear low-mid rpm punch out of the corners was key.
The introduction of FI now brings an elephant into the room of what to do with the 12.5:1 compression ratio, and big Skunk2 Pro 3 cams of the currently assembled engine. The reasonable person would have the JE pistons machined flat to ~10:1 CR, and go back to the stock B16 cams.
However considering the success of the 4 cylinder Cummins Ethos engine, which was optimized boosted SI engine to run 12.5:1 compression on E85 making 450 ft-lbs of torque, makes me want to experiment with high compression, high boost and E85, and exploit the higher octane rating of E85, as well as the evaporative cooling characteristics of this oxygenated fuel.
The best I've seen with a roots type SC on a B-Series is 292.7 hp, 212 lb.ft, (180 ft-lbs at 3k rpm) with a JRSC setup on pump gas. I'm curious to see if the 300 hp barrier can be breached on ethanol with more boost.
Hardware wise, a teflon lined stainless steel fuel cell, with ethanol friendly foam would be needed, along with perhaps ~1300cc injectors, high flow inline fuel pump, stainless steel fuel rail, teflon lined fuel hoses, and a continental flex fuel sensor would be needed. I can adjust my Innovate LM-2 such that the Bosch LSU 4.9 WB sensor reads output lamba for a 9.9 AFR.
I've been told by many to hold off on the blower, and learn the car and iron out the bugs before going for more torque, but if I intend on eventually running the blower, the chassis and the rest of the car will need to make accommodations for it. In terms of the added weight of the blower alone, it weighs 18.2 lbs.